4e Level 30 Magic Items. Who makes these things?

[Tarril Wolfeye]

I agree with you, and I don't debate what it does. My problem is that it means the random treasure (whether through dice roll, DM fiat or pregen adventure) is now a serious hurdle to playing a character concept that you may have developed. As an example, the 3e samurai with his ancestral daisho.

So you're saying if your DM uses random treasure through dice roll (not in DMG) or screws you over (DMG tells him otherwise) or doesn't change pregen adventure treasure (which he should - DMG says so), you're getting a bad deal.
In short - if your DM is a bad DM you suffer.

(That said, I fully expect there to be a Weapon of Legacy style supplement at SOME point, but comparing core to core, 3e allows this, 4e does not. Even if you can't do it yourself you could pay someone to enchant.)

Well you can pay someone to enchant your +1 thundering weapon to be +2 thundering. It's not explicitly mentioned in the Enchant Magic Item ritual, but as you can use it to resize magic armor, the RAI is clear.

I don't even think it's much of a paradigm shift. It keeps magic items as a commodity, it just increases the penalty. 3e had a 1 for 2 penalty, 4e has a 1 for 5 penalty. It's just more penalty to get what you want.

Yes, but 3e used geometric progression. This means after selling your +(x) weapon/armor/amulet/cloak/ring/whatever for half you will only get enough to buy +(x-1) if x=3 or less. If you sell a 200000 gp sword (+10 bonuses) you just get 100000, barely enough for a +7 bonuses sword.
4e uses exponential progression. If you disenchant or sell your +(x) weapon/armor/amulet/cloak you get enough gp to get a +(x-1) item (not counting 10 to 40 percent markup). This doesn't change at upper levels.

 

[grickherder]

I disagree. 4E has returned to the old way of DnD

This is exactly what is going on. I found 3rd edition (and even the magic item creation rules in 2nd) to be really strange. Magic items are to be found, in dungeons. They're to be quested for. The sheer ridiculousness of the amount of gold to make some items means that you are going to be finding them rather than making them. Especially with the residuum mechanic. A 1:5 trade in value? It's just not economical with the current level of magical technology.

Such a weapon could have been created by magic more powerful than what is represented in the PHB. By the direct act of gods, or powerful outsiders. Or it could have been made with a version of the ritual that has other things substituted for gold. Perhaps the +6 avenger can be made with 100 demon or devil hearts rather than gold, demonstrating that the maker is already committed to battling evil forces.

 

[Fenes]

Just poking in for a moment here..

In 3x, there was zero incentive to adapt your character to the 'random' magic item that the DM dropped into the treasure. There really was not a choice since trading up had no real penalty.

In 4e, there is a penalty to trading in and thereby an incentive to weild the new +2 Thunderburst dagger even tho you are a longsword specialist. There could even be an incentive to adapt your character, through feat choice and power selection, to emphasis the new magic item. {and with the retraining rules, this isn't difficult...}

And at the end of the day, trading in for a +1 Thunderburst longsword still does not seriously impact on the characters 'need' for a magic plus to attacks, as AllisterH points out.

Its a paradigm shift in the way characters and players should treat magic items. IMO, its a shift that lends more to organic character growth and better game play. YMMV.

I'd not call it better game play if the game "nudges" me into changing my character away from what I want to play. If I want to play a swashbuckler, then a game that encourages me to change into a polearm fighter through "luck" of the dice is not really helpful.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Like I said, YMMV.

Personnaly I like playing a character that grows based on the adventures he/she goes through instead of by some predesigned progression map.

Fenes, One of my favorite 3e character is carrying around greatsword he found during an adventure. While he can weild it, all his feats and combat build is based on ranged weapons. Every player I have met after that thinks I am crazy for hanging onto a weapon that is sub-optimal and wont be able to get the right feats {or strength score} for a number of levels.

In 3e, keeping the greatsword is a 'stupid' move because its much easier to trade-up and so much harder to adjust the character build.

... and I will have to agree with Tarril Wolfeye. IMC, players provide me with a 'wish list' of the sorts of things their characters are looking for, and I adapt the adventures to match. If you were my player and I know you had a particular focus, I would ensure the treasure packets included proper rewards for that concept.

 

[Fenes]

Fenes, One of my favorite 3e character is carrying around greatsword he found during an adventure. While he can weild it, all his feats and combat build is based on ranged weapons. Every player I have met after that thinks I am crazy for hanging onto a weapon that is sub-optimal and wont be able to get the right feats {or strength score} for a number of levels.

In 3e, keeping the greatsword is a 'stupid' move because its much easier to trade-up and so much harder to adjust the character build.

I played a character for years that used a bastard sword as main melee weapon - despite having to use a feat to even be able to wield it two-handed, and not enough strength to wield it one handed. And since I used a sort of "ancestral blade" (a regular sword, not magical), it was clear it would not be replaced by a magical sword. Greater Magic Weapon helped with that, though.

... and I will have to agree with Tarril Wolfeye. IMC, players provide me with a 'wish list' of the sorts of things their characters are looking for, and I adapt the adventures to match. If you were my player and I know you had a particular focus, I would ensure the treasure packets included proper rewards for that concept.

We do it likewise. I never had any campaign where we traded magic weapons or items. I am just not fond of the "let me roll... oh, a magical scythe! You lucky swashbuckler you!" style of playing. I much prefer the "you've got a magic weapon, which will grow with you" concept - how the weapon grows, if by discovering hidden abilities, "unlocking" them by doing deeds (Slay the spectre of the man who wielded it the first time so it can unlock its potential), enhancing it by great deeds (slay the dragon, and your weapon becomes dragonbane after getting drenched by its blood), geting blessed by dieties or by hiring a wizard for it doesn't matter much to me.

 

[Plane Sailing]

4e Level 30 Magic Items. Who makes these things?

Seriously. I don't mean from a "Who's powerful enough to craft this?" standpoint but from a purely economic one.

Let's consider the Holy Avenger. It only comes in 2 flavors +5 and +6. Now the +5 version costs 625,000 gp. That's a lot, I'm going to guess and say that's about the net worth of your average county, but it's not obscene. The +6 Holy Avenger however costs 3,125,000gp. Who springs for that upgrade?

My approach is to consider these gp values to be purely for the point of view of calculating the appropriate amount of residuum needed to create them.

Of course none of my "points of light" nations are going to have that amount of gold hanging around, and I've never liked the idea of "gold to magic item" processes anyway. However, at epic levels the PCs (and others) might be collecting magic items to render them down and use their magic residuum to create more powerful things. Heck, this is going to be a major modus operandii for many villains (and may explain why the world isn't flooded with cheap magic items - because bad guys are collecting them through fair means and foul to 'fund' the creation of their nastier magic items...

Cheers

 

[med stud]

I think the gold represented in the cost of that weapon isn't physical gold that you somehow burn during the manufacturing of the sword. I think it's either residuum or expensive material components. The one that made the sword obviously had access to those materials or that amount of residuum.

One option for that holy avenger +6 might be that a god made it for his exarch or some aspiring demigod. The god has all the luxury and armies that it needs, the expenditure of residuum all of a sudden becomes kind of sane.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I played a character for years that used a bastard sword as main melee weapon - despite having to use a feat to even be able to wield it two-handed, and not enough strength to wield it one handed. And since I used a sort of "ancestral blade" (a regular sword, not magical), it was clear it would not be replaced by a magical sword. Greater Magic Weapon helped with that, though.

Well, as I said above, in 3e you could easily have enchanted that ancestral blade and continued to advance it. Sure you might have to trade an NPC mage some of that other stuff you got in the dungeon, but the option is there.

We do it likewise. I never had any campaign where we traded magic weapons or items. I am just not fond of the "let me roll... oh, a magical scythe! You lucky swashbuckler you!" style of playing.

I much prefer the treasure to have the party in mind also. Granted, that hasn't been the way D&D defaulted to over the various editions, but it's a nice idea.

3e didn't introduce random magic items, it just gave the players an out to make use of the useless. It gave the players control over what their characters had.

I much prefer the "you've got a magic weapon, which will grow with you" concept - how the weapon grows, if by discovering hidden abilities, "unlocking" them by doing deeds (Slay the spectre of the man who wielded it the first time so it can unlock its potential), enhancing it by great deeds (slay the dragon, and your weapon becomes dragonbane after getting drenched by its blood), geting blessed by dieties or by hiring a wizard for it doesn't matter much to me.

Hopefully there's a Weapons of Legacy type book at some point, but again, 4e isn't like that. You get Magic Items in About AN Hour...

No more magic walmart, now magic items are the photo-booth outside the walmart...


So, my points:
1) 4e doesn't entice players to keep magic items by making them more enticing, but by increasing the penalty for changing them to what you want.
2) 3e added a level of item customization to the mix from the start, some people see this as removing the "wonder" of magic items. I see it as allowing a player to play his character.
3) 4e depends on a DM knowing what his party likes and catering to their needs on some level. If a player is supposed to just take what he can get, then magic items become even less flavorful, as they will be replaced next time something slightly better comes along.
4) The whole sense of wonder about magic items thing, to me, is and always has been a fallacy. The magic items are just a bunch of stats unless the DM or player gives it personality, the system cannot do this.

 

[washout]

At level 30 you care more about getting items to fight other immortals with. A legion of mortals with magic items are not going to help you much in that arena. Not to mention that the magic and treasure you are receiving are out of the price range of kings and nations so the best thing you can do with it is to trade with other immortals or near immortals. It changes from a gold economy to a resedium or astral diamond type economy. Converting a 500k gp magic item into gold would take a pretty serious amount of time to find and transport it, weeks or months.

 

[Andor]

At level 30 you care more about getting items to fight other immortals with. A legion of mortals with magic items are not going to help you much in that arena.

I never suggested that legion of paladins is going to help the PC in combat. I'm saying that spending 2.5 mill to outfit a legion of paladins, or founding a Paladin training academy for that matter is likely to accomplish more good for the world than giving Thor an extra +1 to hit is.

As for spending money on residium or even the simple of idea of residium being used as currency... That 5 to 1 conversion rate is a killer. Would anyone here still be using a credit card if you were charged 5 to 1 for the mere convenience?

Magic Item components were kind of a glaring hole in the economic system even in 3e, residium just calls more attention to it.